I was. Kind of.

I recently got hold of a copy 1000 Comic Books You Must Read, by comic book writer Tony Isabella. Really fun book, covering comics of all genres from 1938 (Action Comics #1) through the present.


One of the entries was for Lassie #51, published in the early 1960s. It's about Lassie and Timmy running across some thieves who have stolen some radioactive isotopes.


Lassie vs. isotope thieves? It really is a comic I must read. Just dropped $6.05 on Ebay for a copy.

It sounds funny. Let us know how it turns out.

Wait, what did the Lassie comic force you to do?

I was going to ask that same thing. And how did it force you to do it? Did it roll itself up and hit you repeatedly across the nose? I'm confused.

Man, you are gonna hate the next-to-last page of that one. It ain't pretty. Lassie jumps through the window of the forest ranger outpost and starts barking. The ranger looks at Lassie and says, "What's that, Lassie? Timmy's hair is falling out and he's vomiting blood??!!?? There's no time to lose!"

I won't wreck the surprise ending for you.

I hate it it when I type the title of a thread incorrectly. There's no way to edit the darn thing that I know of!!!!

I'm thinking it's along the lines of "Son Of Sam".

And, later, when he's in prison, Lassie will appear to him and tell him it's time to cleanse the prison. He'll point out that Lassie is just a dog and Lassie will point out what "Dog" spelled backwards says.

It turned out to be a pretty good story. Really.

Timmy, Lassie and a friend find a car wreck and an injured man, who pulls a gun on them. Lassie disarms the guy, who then faints from his injuries.

Timmy and his friend get curious and open the big suitcase the guy had next to him. There's all these odd little lead containers inside, including one that has broken open and spilled some sort of powder all over the place.

Timmy and his friend head home to tell Timmy's mom and get the cops and an ambulance for the injured guy. But they hear a news report on the radio about stolen isotopes and a warning that the isotopes are "hot." Timmy's friend thinks this means they'll be arrested for touching the items, so urges Timmy to keep the whole thing a secret.

But Timmy's conscience won't let him just ignore the injured thief. He tells his mom about him, but not about the isotopes. The authorities, though, find out through geiger counter readings that Timmy, Lassie and now his mom are all "hot." Timmy admits to handling the lead containers. He and the others are decontaminated "just in time." All the living room furniture in their house has to be taken out and burned. Timmy learns a valuable lesson about always telling the whole truth.


I'm not sorry I bought and read it. It was a reasonably well-constructed story with good art work. The moral to the story was an inherent part of the tale and didn't come across as heavy-handed. The book, after all, was marketed to children when it first came out, so having a good moral to it was appropriate.

I knew that joke was coming, but I couldn't figure out a way to stop it.

You left out the part about Wolverine guest-starring as Lassie's boyfriend.

Timmy's mom has got it going on...

wow, who knew Lassie was so cutting edge? Notice no mention of Timmy's father... maybe he left Timmy's mom for some floozy and now she's a single mother making do on Alimony and Child Support living in the house Timmy's father bought for the family but he's now living in skid row limping by because she had a good lawyer and took him to the cleaners....... and his floozy left him when he could "afford" her...
Prescient even...

Actually, Timmy's dad appeared near the end of the story, pretty much whining that his favorite easy chair had to be burned.